Obviously, last week's release of new draft of GPLv3 was a big deal in the software world, but the discussion has taken a strange turn. The tech media all did their job -- reporting, interviewing, analyzing. But the discussion boards, both "community" and business, are oddly uninformative.

Some big questions swirl around how GPLv3 would work in the real world, and, above all, how would it affect the customers' and the whole tech world's need for both interoperability and transaction costs that are low and predictable.

For example, how does v3 affect the long-standing issue of dynamic linking of proprietary aps and GPL'ed code? What will finally happen on the web services issue, which was punted pending the revision of a license controlled by an outside party, so no one knows whether companies such as Google should sign on to GPLv3 or run for the hills. Would it be possible for content companies to use DRM with GPLv3'ed software or not? What is the impact of the "get MSFT/NOVL" clauses on other patent issues? How will makers of consumer electronics react to the license provisions governing embedded software, and how would the "community" react to a shift of code from software to hardware in such devices?

I can't answer any of these -- and I am not getting much help. The community boards are mostly diatribes. As noted, the press has done its job, but the reporters are mostly puzzled by these same issues. The Linux Foundation has not even noted the release of the GPLv3 and the corporate blogs of Sun, IBM, mentioned the release in passing and then clammed up. The Free Software Foundation's materials are off in a world of abstractions.

Hopefully, the parties have digested the materials over the weekend and some answers will appear this week.

posted by James DeLong @ 9:09 AM | Software

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